Students were front and center at Marwen’s Paintbrush Ball, a silvery and glittery affair celebrating the nonprofit art academy’s 25th anniversary.

The gala, which took place Saturday night at Marwen’s River North campus, featured a student-run photo booth and artwork by students up for auction and sale, as well as plenty of alumni roaming the crowd of 485.

The whole affair sparkled — literally and figuratively. Silver shone overhead in a disco ball hovering above the dance floor and whimsical silver sculptures dangling high above the bar, and underfoot were silver sparkles in the carpeting.

Silver shoes, dresses and ties dotted the crowd, and some students wore party hats, the pointed paper kind you’d see at a child’s birthday party, not at a $350-per-plate fundraiser.

Marwen is about students, hence their presence at the gala, said Antonia Contro, Marwen executive director. “Kids seldom have the opportunity to engage in art, and if they do it’s unlikely at this caliber,” said Ms. Contro, who wore a white sleeveless dress and the evening’s raffle prize: a pair of five-carat Sidney Garber earrings. “When I hand them over," she said of the jewelry, "it’ll be a Cinderella moment."

During the evening, students and clusters of guests traipsed in and out of Marwen’s loft-like studio, where 28 participants in the school’s accelerated lab program displayed their photography, sculpture and painting.

Lilly Kustec, a Marwen student and senior at Walter Payton Academy, showed her work to Roxanne Apple, a Sotheby’s broker who flew in from Santa Fe, N.M., for the occasion. Ms. Kustec will attend Middlebury College in Vermont in the fall.

The gala also honored Steven P. Berkowitz, the Chicago gallery owner who started Marwen to give underprivileged kids a chance to explore visual arts. The first class had two students, one of whom, Clemenstein Love, is now a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Marwen now enrolls 800 students a year, 90% of whom go to college.

“Look how far we’ve come,” said Mr. Berkowitz, now 71 and retired, as he waited to have his picture taken at the photo booth. “It feels good.”

The gala grossed $716,000 — a Paintbrush Ball record — to fund the school’s various programs and operations. Proceeds from the annual gala account for one-third of the school’s annual operating budget.

May 15, 2014

A lotta night music: That's what Mozart might have called Merit School of Music's 35th anniversary celebration, held May 8 at the Palmer House Hilton. From cocktails through dinner, live music performed by students from the West Side school filled the air.